Kazakh oil producer KazMunaiGas Exploration and Production (KazMunaiGas EP) said its net profit fell 13% last year to $1.4 billion due to lower oil prices and higher taxes. "Operating profit declined by 50% to 155 billion tenge ($1.05 billion) compared to 308 billion tenge ($2,559 billion) in 2008, mainly due to lower oil prices and introduction of the new Tax Code in January 2009," it said in a statement today.
"In 2010 we are planning to continue implementing our acquisition strategy as well as to significantly increase capital expenditure, in order to further grow production and increase reserves," chief executive Kenzhebek Ibrashev said. Kazakh state energy company KazMunaiGas owns a majority stake in London-listed KazMunaiGas EP and often sells stakes it acquires in other upstream ventures to its subsidiary. In particular, KazMunaiGas EP said today it would buy its parent's 50% stake in MangistauMunaiGas, a company half-owned by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
"We'd expect that process to be completed in the later part of this year and hopefully would complete the deal subject to board approval in late 2010, early 2011," Reuters quoted KazMunaiGas EP financial controller Shane Drader as telling a conference call. Drader did not say how much his company would pay for the asset but added it was also about to buy stakes in smaller upstream ventures Kazakhoil Aktobe and KazTurkMunai. "The negotiations on those two deals are completed. The due diligence is completed," he said. "At the moment we're waiting for final board approval and voting on those assets."
